“What’s the master plan? Just give me the basics. Tell me whatever I need to know, so I’m not surprised by something that could really hurt us.”
I could see the wheels turning in his head. I half expected him to refuse to tell me any more, but he surprised me.
“Okay.” He glanced at the twins to make sure they were still asleep. “Somehow we need to get on a plane to the mainland and avoid getting shot down at the coast. We need to get close to Denver and find a place we can meet your brother, assuming he does in fact come for you. Then we make the exchange and go our separate ways.”
“You actually do want Danny to come?” I asked, mildly surprised. “And if he does—if he brings you the book—you’ll honestly let us go?”
“Hayley, you don’t have to believe me. I’m certain you won’t now. But I am a man of integrity. Danny has saved my life twice. I don’t want to hurt either of you. I did not want to shoot Sam. I wanted to kill Block when he was attacking you. I promise you…I promise you…I honestly care for you a lot.”
I chose to pretend his words didn’t matter to me—even concealing my smile at him calling Brock “Block”—but the ache deep in my chest proved I did care. I was certain he meant every word he said. I almost felt sorry for him. Still, no amount of truth or apologies would make me forget what he’d done to Sam—what he’d done to me.
“Would you really kill Dad, Tara, and Ollie?”
“No.” His reply was sufficiently firm. “I was given a bomb and chose not to leave it there. I brought it with us instead. I needed you to believe I would though.”
“Oh, I believed you would.” I kicked the wall. “Trust me.” Should’ve pushed him off the boat back in Hawaii.
“But that doesn’t mean they’re safe. The people who have the girls, they have no allegiance to me. I left Danny a clue on the boat to let him know who he was dealing with. If he’s found the boat and been to the property on Kauai by now he will hopefully have made the connection. He will know they are professionals and that they are serious—perhaps even that it is all connected. He will do what they tell him to do or none of this will matter. If I don’t make it to Denver in time—or at all—or Denver sends a message to kill them, they will kill them, no matter what I do or say, maybe even after I give them what they want. If Denver tells them to try to get to Redemption and kill the others, they will try that too. If Danny got my message he can hopefully prevent that. I do not work with these people…I do not work for these people.”
“Hang on…you say that, but here you are, doing what they want you to.”
“I was given assurances,” Lazzo explained. “My command—the Libyan commander, he says he has my family in prison in Puerto Rico. My family. I thought they were all dead, but then…”
“What?”
“Then…I see what I think is them on a video at that house—my wife and daughter. I think I see my brother too. My brother… he is supposed to be alive there too.”
“Eddie? But he—”
“Yes, Eddie. They tell me they don’t kill him—they don’t kill my wife and daughter—they give them to me if I get them what they need.”
“Okay.” I leaned my head back, thinking. He was actually telling me a lot. “Assuming all of that is true… what is it exactly they need?”
“The book.”
“I know that. I mean, what’s in this special book?”
I was expecting an, “I can’t tell you that” but he had completely let down his guard now. “Codes. Danny has a book with codes.” “Codes? What kind of—”
“For disarming the Shield, for breaking into the Cheyenne Mountain bunker, for launching missiles—maps, plans, secrets, et cetera… those kind of things.”
Holy shit. And he’s expecting Danny to give that to him? To Qi Jia? “Uh, Lazzo…”
“I’ve said too much, Hayley. But I owed you that. And now you know what you need to know. I don’t want to talk about this again.” He stood and walked away.
I watched him leave and reviewed our conversation. He had clearly said there were no guarantees. Even if he did what this commander expected him to, the captors could still kill Reagan and the girls. How was there any potential victory in this for us? We were entirely at the mercy of people who had never shown any.
As Lazzo sat down, I saw Flynn stand and walk toward me. She kept a suspicious eye on Lazzo, and it occurred to me she couldn’t see me in the shadows behind these crates. She might be worried about what he might have done to me. I stood up and watched the relief flood her face as she saw me step out of the dark corner. She hurried over. “Thank God…”
“He’s not going to hurt me.” I took her hand. “He needs me.”
“Can you tell me what’s going on? I mean, you don’t have—”
“No, that’s fine.” We sat down and leaned against the cold steel wall. “Flynn, you have done far more than enough to deserve to know what I know.” I told her about Sam and shared everything Lazzo had told me—save for the contents of the book. When I was finished, all she could say was, “Wow.”
“Tell me about it.” I leaned my head back.
“I’m sorry about Sam.” She rested her head on my shoulder.
“And I’m sorry about Jesse.” I tilted my head against hers. I was fortunate Flynn was who she was—when she was—and that she had the set of circumstances in her life that made her willing to help me—to go against her father. “So what happens to you and Chase now?”
I could feel her shrug. “I don’t know. No clue. But I do know we have to get you and Lazzo on one of the planes. They leave in two hours.”
She was right, but I had another dilemma. I wanted to bring her along with me, to keep her safe, but safety was even more uncertain off this ship. I might be putting her more in harm’s way. It felt like a lose-lose scenario. I finally reasoned it was unfair for me to decide. “Flynn…”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to come with us?”
She didn’t answer for a while, and I turned to look her in the eyes. Finally she nodded. “Yes, but… I don’t think I should.”
I paused for a few seconds too but then replied, “I understand. I do. Your dad—”
“No.” She grabbed my arm. “It has nothing to do with my dad. It’s Chase. He has asthma and anxiety attacks. He’s not exactly the athletic type. He tries, and he would seriously try, but he’s been sick a lot lately and… I don’t think he’d make it.”
How did this all-around beautiful person come from that monster? “Flynn…”
“I’m sorry…”
“No.” I smiled and wrapped her in a hug. “Please don’t apologize. We’re almost the same age, but you’re easily five times the person I am. How you’ve become who you are with—”
“Dad?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Put it this way… terrible people are the best examples of what you don’t want to be.” Ain’t that the truth. “I had to take care of my mother when my dad wouldn’t. When she was in the hospital—dying—he didn’t visit her once or even ask about her. So what if they were divorced? When she died, I had to take care of Chase. I love my brother, but he’s had such a tough life. Dad has been far worse to him than he’s ever been to me. We’ve both had to live with the abuse and rage and a drunken loser of a father…but Chase always had to hear how he was such a disappointment—how Dad wished he’d never been born. I had to keep Chase going. I had to keep Chase alive.”
I couldn’t even imagine. Even when Dad had abandoned Danny and me after Mom died, I still believed he loved us—he certainly never said otherwise. “Hey…you’re amazing,” I smiled at her. “Trust me. And you’re nothing like—”